South Boulder Peak Trail

South Boulder Peak Trail is a 7.8 mile moderately trafficked out and back trail located near Eldorado Springs, Colorado that features beautiful wild flowers and is rated as difficult. The trail offers a number of activity options and is best used from March until November. Dogs are also able to use this trail.

DISTANCE

7.8 miles

ELEVATION GAIN

2883 feet

ROUTE TYPE

Out & Back

dog friendly

birding

hiking

nature trips

trail running

walking

forest

views

wild flowers

wildlife

rocky

up a wooded canyon to top of a mountain peak, strenuous hike.
This hike starts in the plains of the foothills along townee trail. It then connects to shadow canyon trail and enters a cool wooded canyon. At the top of the canyon a short trail takes you to the top of South Boulder Peak. This peak does not have many visitors, as compared to the other nearby peaks.

Great hike! Once I summited South Boulder Peak, I decided to check out Bear Peak, which was an easy add once your up there if your legs are still feeling good. I started this hike around 8:40am and on my decent the sun/warm weather had already put in work on the snow from yesterday! Extra traction (as of today) is a “nice to have” over a “need to have”.

Challenging hike, awesome hike. First 2 miles are a nice warm up but expect a steep ascent after. Almost harder on the way down! Great views from the top - overall, preferred the summit of Green Mountain. Love the views of Devil’s Thumb.

Great and tough hike just outside of Boulder starting through the rolling open prairie foothills into the flatirons forests and then a sharp change to steep incline like climbing lots of stairs to get up top where the trail splits and you can go to South Boulder peak or bear peak or both. Beautiful views from up top especially looking west at the snow capped mountains. Pretty windy up top. Good option for a strenuous hike and incline without snow up top like other similar gain hikes farther into the mountains that are already too icy and snowy.

This is always a humbling hike. Shadow Canyon will test your fitness for sure. This hike gains close to 3K feet so you see a wide variety of terrain and eco-systems. If your lucky, at the top you will be buzzed by Golden Eagles or the occasional glider. Keep an eye out for wildlife, we saw a Ptarmigan in Shadow Canyon last time out.

Great hike, however I brought the dog along with me on South Boulder Canyon trail and he was struggling on the last 1.5 up due to the rocks, so I turned around. I would not recommend bringing dogs if you want to make it to the peak.

Hard trail. Steep incline over last mile and a half. Lots of bouldering. Imagine there are stunning views at the top but we weren't able to see much given the forest fires. Take plenty of food and water.

Always love this trail. Keep in mind that the South Mesa Trail-head and most of the Shadow Canyon and Mesa trails are currently closed on weekdays until Mid-November. The only access would be via the Bluestem trail which will be a very long hike.

Took us about 5 hours roundtrip. The descent was much harder than the ascent because of the rocky terrain. It was particularly hard on the knees and ankles. Highly recommend hiking poles.Spotted a bear during the descent about a mile from trailhead.

Challenging due to last 1.5m - steep and rocky.
It took me 1:40 up, and about 1 hour down (neadless to say, most of downhill was running).
Make sure to have good shoes with rough soles - the rocks are always slippery.

This trail was beautiful and challenging. The panoramic view from the top is amazing. Most of the elevation gain is in the last mile and a half or so. I stopped a few times to rest and fuel up and I reached the summit in about 3 hours. I got back down in about 2 hours. I was very thankful to have my poles on the way down. There is a lot of loose rock and things get slippery.

The first 2.5 miles of this are really pleasant and easy, but the last 1.5 miles of the trail is very difficult. It's not necessarily the incline (which is very steep), but the quality of the trail is low in that it is mostly rocks, which makes coming down difficult.

The views on this hike are spectacular though, and the hike itself brings you through about 4 different ecosystems, which was really neat. There were some trail runners on this trail to my surprise given the quality of the last section.

Perfect hiking trail. Great mix of simple, wide, gravel-paved trail, and narrow, step-like hiking trail through the trees, boulders, and across streams, and more boulders. SUCH an enjoyable hike!!!I even did this after it had snowed some, and while there were thick clouds hanging out on top of the mountain; Never did it feel too unsafe to climb, but for a few spots on the decent where there was snow packed down already. The snow made it so beautiful though!!! And the "fog" at the top made it wonderfully secluded, and left me full of awe and wonder!! Thank you Jesus for such a good hike! :D